Quality Education

NEW YORK (IDN) – The Obama Foundation, which aims "to inspire and empower people to change their world", is launching a 'Leaders Africa Program', and is seeking to identify a group of emerging African leaders from all sectors – government, civil society, and the private sector.

They should have demonstrated a commitment to advancing the common good, reports New York based africa.com. "The objective of the program is to build a growing network of innovative and ethical changemakers, who seek to drive positive change in their communities."

NEW YORK (IDN) – Just days before a major retrospective of his cinematic work in Brazil, Idrissa Ouedraogo passed away in his home country of Burkina Faso on February 18. He was 64.

"We talked two weeks ago," said a grieving Janaina Oliveira of Brazil's Center for Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous Studies in a Facebook post. "I was bringing him to Brazil. Tickets, screening, tribute…it was all set. He was so happy."

Ouedraogo was born on January 21, 1954, in Banfora, Burkina Faso. His parents were farmers, and he grew up in a village outside Ouagadougou.

NEW YORK (IDN) – One of the world’s largest multilateral development banks, the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), has launched 'Engage', a new digital platform which will promote technological and scientific solutions to accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

IsDB President Dr. Bandar Hajjar announced on February 21 the launch of the new platform at an event hosted at Bloomberg's European Headquarters in London, together with UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), Dr. Shamshad Akhtar, Dr. Hayat Sindi, Chief Scientific Advisor to IsDB, and a group of business, innovation and development experts.

VIENNA (IDN) – A comfort often overlooked, the water served at the Vienna UN headquarters is locally sourced from mountains outside of the city. In Austria, water is a point of pride. This developed nation's water sector is committed not only to quality water systems but also to sustainable practices regarding the water and waste industry. For Austrians, and those frequenting the UN's conference rooms in Vienna, exceptional drinking water is a given.

CHANTABURI, Thailand (IDN) – A passionate, socially conscious doctor in this rural farming community in the north-east of Thailand is working with a school for marginalised children, supported by a foundation set up by Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, the second daughter of late King Bhumibol who died in October 2016.

The school aims at empowering the students to break into the medical field through an unconventional career path that is providing a multi-faceted approach to addressing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

DAR ES SALAAM (IDN) – Despite efforts to promote gender equality, women and girls in Tanzania are still marginalised and largely under-utilised citizens – often suffering from discrimination and violence from their male counterparts due to a biased male-dominated system which often pushes women to the brink of survival.

However, in line with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), various initiatives are being implemented to empower women, although they still face obstacles that prevent them from reaching their full potential.

Among others, the SDGs call for women’s empowerment, greater access to education, health care, decent work and fair representation in political and economic decision-making processes, and the following are just some of the initiatives in these directions currently under way in the East African country.

NAMOKANDA, West Bengal, India (IDN) – Six years ago this remote village of 130 households about 80 km from Santiniketan – the hometown of famous Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore – was a small picturesque village community surrounded by paddy fields, but without a sustainable development concept.

Today it is a confident community with most households having access to water and sanitation, and most of its children in school aspiring to go to university. One of the community leaders is even doing research in development communication at the famous Visva-Bharati University, India’s first ‘institute of national importance’, set up by Tagore.

The following is a modified version of an article which first appeared on Other News, published by the writer, an eminent proponent of "information that markets eliminate".

ROME (IDN) – We are living a paradox in which two parallel worlds coexist: the (real) world of places of poverty and violence that we (occasionally) read about in newspapers or see on TV and the other world featuring the same places which exists only for tourists, the world of beautiful beaches, wonderful nature and fantastic hotels.

Behind this paradox lies a fundamental question: how many tourists travelling the world this year will consider the social, cultural and environmental impact of their activity? Probably very few, and this is a serious issue with tourism having become a mass phenomenon driven (as usual) by money.

TOKYO (IDN) – Since DEVNET Japan participated in August 2015 in Expo 2015 hosted by the Italian city of Milan, the organization set up in March 2013 to promote Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) particularly in Southeast Asia has made considerable strides.

It was one of the notable non-official participants of the universal exhibition. Then known as DEVNET Tokyo Foundation, we availed of Milan Expo 2015 to throw light on our agenda focused on promoting seven themes: poverty alleviation; food security; humanitarian support; environmental protection; advanced technology and energy saving; support of women entrepreneurs and improvement of women's status; and the establishment of sustainable developing society.

BEUNGSANTHUENG, Laos (IDN) – A quiet revolution is taking shape in rural Laos, where environmentally-conscious village Buddhist monks are teaching people morality and meditation to spearhead a movement mobilising the people to economically develop their communities for living in harmony with nature rather than destroying it in the name of development.

At the Ban Beungsanthueng community, in Nongbok District in Khammouane Province of Laos, about 400 km south of the capital Vientiane, monks educate the villagers in Sila (Buddhist morality) and the way to live a good life (Right Livelihood), while protecting the environment. In this nominally communist country, the monks explain the linkage between humans and nature to villagers, and its importance to their livelihoods and well-being.